Just when you think we've found every way to break a glider...

>>>>>>

Ghost Glider...
(30/October/2021)
- Argentina 🇦🇷 :
A Schweizer SGU 2-22 glider, registration LV-EFH, was accidently towed without any pilot onboard and eventually released, the glider continued on its own and impacted the terrain at Aeroclub Diamante, Entre Rios, Argentina.
The glider sustained substantial damage and there were no reported injuries.

According to a witness:

"a check was being made of the state of the cutting hook, which is the one that releases the glider rope, the turner interpreted that the glider was ready for takeoff, gave power to the engine and towed it. As no one was inside the aircraft, the cut-off could not be activated and the glider flew out by itself, after a few meters it lost control and fell to the ground, for which it suffered various material damage" (translated from Spanish)

>>>>>

Ann Welch in her book, Accidents Happen, recounted one where the glider was being aerotowed from the manufacturer. After a fuel stop, the towplane was being hand propped with the glider pilot in the glider.

The engine went to full power. The glider pilot got out to help the towpilot without releasing the rope, to no avail.

Both aircraft took off as UAVs, but failed to land successfully.

I believe there was an incident some years back where the hangar was at one end of the property and the staging area was in the middle of the property.. Normally golf carts were used to tow gliders down to the staging area but in this case the plan was to use a towplane to slowly pull the glider with a wing walker. Yep, you guessed it, when the wing walker raised the wing the towplane took off taking the empty glider with it.

Yep, it has happen in Hawaii, pilot hooked up the rope and closed the canopy and walked away. Lucky things went so crazy quickly the tow pilot pulled the release and shut down quickly. We never used wing runners or radios so it was an accident waiting to happen. Moral of the story is never hook up the rope unless a pilot is sitting inside.

Buzz Graves

Did anyone smack the first guy for putting his full hand on the canopy?

Dan
5J

On 9/19/23 09:34, rec.aviation.soaring wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 9:50:44 AM UTC-4, Gary Emerson wrote:
>> I believe there was an incident some years back where the hangar was at one end of the property and the staging area was in the middle of the property. Normally golf carts were used to tow gliders down to the staging area but in this case the plan was to use a towplane to slowly pull the glider with a wing walker. Yep, you guessed it, when the wing walker raised the wing the towplane took off taking the empty glider with it.
>
>
> Along the same lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AiPKrsHql4